I am thinking about buying a motor sailer. I will be single handeling much of the time and will want to motor when I am alone and sail when I can organize a crew. I think the Hans Christians are beautiful boats to look at but have never been out on one. I am thinking about the 44 Pilothouse and would like to go around Bermuda, BVI, and eventually across to Austraila. Any comments good or bad would be most appreciated.

Beautiful works of art! And you're headed in the right direction labeling them a motor-sailor, with that you can assume they aren't well known for being the best sailing boats at sea. As beautiful as they are - that comes with the price of high maintenance! I wanted a HS 44 ketch for the longest time but couldn't pull the trigger. Best of luck!

I too think HC's are "works of art" at least in the visual sort of way. I don't need to sail quickly. I am not what you would call a "Man of the Sea". I know how to sail, in the little knowledge is a dangerous thing sort of way.

I do, however, wear Old Spice sometimes... I want to make that clear.

All that being uselessly said, I have heard what you said about HC's being high maintanence. I am not sure why they are expensive in this regard, especially since they are so expensive in the way they are built. I know the ones I can afford, $ 220K plus or minus, are pretty old works of art. Can you (will you) expain the type of problems they are known for in this regard. Maintanence problems are the last thing I want.

Teak Teak Teak - thats a lot of cleaning, leak sealing, varnishing, ding repairing. With that said, Man it looks beautiful when its properly maintained, you'll catch the eye of everyone within a mile! So the question is... Would you like to sail or varnish?

They're heavy displacement boats in every sense of the word. I've crewed on deliveries. They sail like a truck, but in heavy seas they're very stable.

From my experience with teak on a Cabo Rico, after you've got seven coats of varnish on everything, figure on one or more coats of varnish every four to five months. Every three or four years you should strip it to the bare wood, apply a sealer and four coats of varnish.

I delivered a 38 from Guatemala. Faster then their reputation, I was quite pleased with her speed. I think their quality is pretty good too and their resale value is pretty stable. She was very forgiving, I was hit by a bad squall of 50 plus knots with full sails up and she took it like a champ while I scrambled to get the reefs in.
As far as maintenance, the TEAK as stated above, either let the teak silver out ( if done right can be very pretty) or budget time or money to varnish every 6 months for the tropics. If she has teak decks the deck coring is a concern. The caulking/sealing isn't done very well from factory, so the coring is always something to look at carefully. The HC are beautiful vessels.
Hope that helps,
Erika

high maintenance for sure, had a 38. Great boats style wise.. the motor sailors are a little phone booth ish...but then so do lagoon cats! the HC have some "class" anyway. You need a BIG engine.... they dont like to go upwind through waves... sailing or motoring....

You got it right about motoring, but that's what heavy displacement is about along with as OG stated 'standing up well in 50Kts' as you're reefing.
Along with the Old Spice add some Cap'n Morgan and you'll be there!

Oh, well teak I can handle. Caulking/sealing... perhaps. I am 54 and want to go to Bermuda/etc. and write the great American novel and be basically solo, until I find some fellow wakos to sail across the Pacific with me. Writing, motorsailing, varnishing-- that's the life for me. And I do want to have a big engine, as long as there are no maintanence problems with it!!! Thank you all for your responses. Does CaptainMorgan smell good?

Can't give any personal experience with HC but have you heard about the one that dragged it's anchor in a howling offshore on New Year's Eve on the south-west coast of West Australia a few years ago, while the owners were partying ashore?

It was thought to have been stolen and sunk so insurance paid out to the owner. Then in mid-March it was discovered by a fishing vessel thousands of miles away in the Indian Ocean, the (too) short anchor line still streamed over the bow and everything inside still intact and shipshape, despite severe storms having been experienced in the area during the two and a half months. It says a lot about the seaworthiness of the vessel.

One of the crew sailed the vessel back to Fremantle where it was sold. Sadly I did not have the cash at the time..... Ironically the vessel was called "Blown Away".

like many others I looked at the HCs for 2-3 years, before deciding not to go down that path.

I spoke to many HC owners and they all had one piece of feedback in common that in the end convinced me to go away from the HCs - "you spend way more time working on them than you ever expected", "i love it, but it's a lot of hard work to keep her looking the way she does", etc etc...

Interestingly few owners if any complained about the boats being slow. I guess you get used to what you have and try and sail to it's strengths.

Many people raved about the boat's downwind performance both in terms of comfort under sail in heavy weather and speed.

I met one Swedish owner in Vanuatu who sailed with his partner for 5 years in the Pacific and claimed he mostly sailed under Genoa with no main often averaging 6-7 knots (HC 38) he conceded that he needed at least 20 knots of breeze to get going.

My 5 cents, is go for it if you love working on boats as much as you like sailing them - not being sarcastic here - I have genuinely met many people who are like that.

My experience is about the same as most above. We had good friends who owned and lived aboard a 33T for a number of years. The captain loved working on it and keeping it up but it was a big job which he eventually got tired of. They moved down to a Baba 30 (our old boat) which they found had a lot of the same features and qualities but not as much maintenance.

We went the opposite way: Our boat was built by the former HC yard manager - he wanted to build a solidly built performance cruiser with a low maintenance exterior. The only teak we have is the companionway surround (it's always covered), the cockpit table (covered) and the flag staff.